Are you making excuses or is your training plan making them for you?
- Emma O'Toole
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Many runners and cyclists believe they lack motivation or discipline when they repeatedly skip sessions. In reality, the problem is often a mismatch between the training plan and the athlete. Training that feels overwhelming, doesn't fit your current ability, or creates unnecessary pressure can reduce confidence and consistency. This article explains three common reasons endurance athletes make excuses to train and how adjusting your approach can improve motivation, self-belief and long-term consistency.
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TRAINING BREAKDOWN
"Commitment, resilience, discipline, and motivation are not binary qualities that you either have or you do not."
By Emma O'Toole
Hello!
Have you come across David Goggins' 40% rule? It’s the idea that when your mind says stop, your body still has around 60% left to give.
A reader referenced it a couple of weeks ago in an email reply to Jane's story, and it is something I think about a lot with the runners and cyclists I work with. Mindset, commitment, resilience, discipline, these are things a training plan alone can't give you.
Funnily enough, that very weekend Jane and I completed the London to Paris ride, I found myself in a conversation on this very topic with a rider who had just completed the ride (and this was before the email was received!)
I mentioned to him that I was planning to ride home from Newhaven the following day. He said he would love to do something like that but he would keep making excuses and that’s what he does in his training too. He said it almost apologetically, as if the excuses he makes in training are just part of who he is and he’s resigned to them, rather than something else. He’s not alone and I’m sure many of you reading this will relate to how he feels.
When someone says they will keep making excuses, my first instinct is never to tell them to “toughen up” or “think more positively”. My first instinct is to try to figure out where the doubt is coming from. Doubt usually comes from something specific and if you can identify the source, you can often do something about it, including changing your training plan itself.
Here are 3 common ones:
Is the training too big?
If your run/ride feels overwhelming before you have even started, what can we do about it?
A common one here is runners during their marathon blocks getting to peak weeks and feeling overwhelmed by the 18 miles on their training plan. For some, they’re already looking at ways they can pull the plug on the session. Now, this is where you need to back yourself and praise what you have done. In this case, a runner would have likely done something like a 16 mile long run very recently, so that’s the confidence booster. If you had enough time before your marathon, then maybe the right thing to do is to repeat the 16 mile run until you feel more confident with the distance. And if your training plan has been too aggressive with its mileage jumps, it's time to change the plan!
Do you back yourself?
Sometimes excuses aren’t really about the training at all, they’re coming from a lack of self-belief but sometimes a plan that does not fit your life or your current level makes that self belief even harder to find. The belief that you are not the kind of person who does these things, that finishes these events, holds this pace, or completes this distance. People struggle to call themselves runners or cyclists, despite doing these sports 5+ days a week!
This is why I feel so strongly about speaking with others in the endurance world from beginners right through to coaches who have been where you are and potentially where you want to go, but most importantly, who understand what you are working through right now. You don’t get any extra bonuses from figuring everything out alone, having someone in your corner who can see what you cannot yet see about yourself makes a real difference to your training.
Are you putting pressure on yourself?
Some runners and cyclists spend more time looking at the numbers during their session than actually enjoying the session. They then fixate on them and use them as a standard for future sessions. Data is important, 10000%, but if in every ride you have to hit a certain number of watts, or if you have to run at a certain pace in every session you’re putting way too much pressure on yourself.
You need to go back to the purpose of the session. Is it a recovery ride? Then your average speed is more of a by-product. Is it a threshold interval run? Then your pace in those intervals is important. Take away unnecessary pressure and you’ll often find that the excuses become far less common.
Something else I want to add because I think it gets overlooked in a world that is permanently switched “on” is that training is one of the very few things in modern life that asks you to be fully present. No notifications, no emails, no one needing something from you. It’s just you, the road, the trail, the track, and the effort in front of you.
Some of my clearest thinking happens on long rides and long runs. Sometimes I barely think at all and I’m just present with my surroundings. That matters a lot to me for my mental health.
If you find yourself making excuses to avoid that headspace, it is worth asking honestly whether something else is going on: tiredness, stress, life load, your training plan etc.
So, where does that leave the 40% rule?
I do think there is real truth in it during a race or a hard effort, when you’re suffering, all you want is to stop and the finish feels impossibly far away. In those moments your body does have more to give than your mind believes, and digging deep is the right call and will teach you things about yourself that you wouldn’t have otherwise experienced.
However, when it comes to your training, I would think differently. If you’re constantly making excuses, quitting half way through or dreading your sessions, this is information. Training is meant to push you, but you’re also meant to enjoy it. The skill is learning to tell the difference between the discomfort that is worth pushing through and when to listen and adjust and that does take time and comes from making mistakes!
Commitment, resilience, discipline, and motivation are not binary qualities that you either have or you do not. They are things you build with every run, ride, strength training session you do and rest day that you take.
The rider I spoke with at the end of the London to Paris ride had just completed the hard thing, but he hadn’t given himself credit. And maybe that is where I would start with all of this. Not with motivation or discipline or resilience as abstract concepts, but with credit.
Acknowledge what you do week after week, build from there and look at whether your training plan is working for you.
Happy running and riding!
Emma x
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